Weeks 3 & 4

Starting with week three, I started taking over my mentor teacher's 3rd and 4th period 7th grade classes. I was pretty excited because I would start feeling more like a real teacher and started using my own lessons. The transition was a pretty easy one since they have all been around me for a few weeks and were comfortable with me taking over. The students started off being a little more noisey since I was a student teacher and they wanted to test me, so I did have to raise my voice a little to let them know that I am in charge. The 3rd week went by very well and I was happy with what happened. During my fourth week I got into my own rythmn of doing things and felt very comfortable in class. I sped through some sections that flowed smoothly together so that I would be able to implement my action research test. The test had only 20 questions with 5 on basics, 8 on decimals and 7 on fractions. They had the entire period to work on it without a calculator so I could get my baseline data for my research. I was very surprised that the scores were so low with the main focus on fractions. My students acted like they have never seen or used fractions before in their lives. Even though my students performed poorly on this research test, it did provide me with a good baseline data so I know where to focus my attention with my students. The test also proved me right because it shows that my students have become very dependent on calculators for everything, including their basic skills that they should be mastering at this level. Overall it has been a pretty good semester and I am looking forward to this upcoming week because I will be taking over 4 out of the 6 classes and I am also going to the LSU game, so I am pretty psyched for that too.

Weeks 1 & 2

My first two weeks have been great. My mentor teacher made me feel from day one that I was a part of the class already by making sure I was introduced in all of his classes. I felt this allowed for me to start out as an authority figure right away. Besides just making sure the students knew who I was, my mentor teacher makes me feel comfortable in his class because he is laid back like me and I don't feel any pressure from him. Throughout the past two weeks I feel I am becoming more familiar with all my students and they feel just as comfortable with me as their teacher as they would if my mentor teacher was teaching. We have had very little problems in the classroom currently with the exception of one or two students, so we have been able to get a lot of work done because the students are not being distracted.
After the first day I started helping out more by grading quizzes and checking homework everyday I'm there. I feel this has helped me a lot because I have full control over how many points the students get on their quizzes, and it is helping me understand how to grade better. Also I am becoming more keen about how students try and make it look like they did their homework and if they just copied answers from another student. During our planning period I have been making lessons for the future so I will be ahead of schedule when I start taking over his classes, which will be starting this week. Starting Tuesday I plan to take over two of his six classes and I am already prepared for the class until October with some open days to conduct my action research. Overall it has been a great two weeks and I believe it will continue throughout the semester.

Artifacts and Characteristics of a Novice Teacher

If there is one thing that I have learned from my mentor teacher this year, it is that all students are able to learn and that a teacher should try everything he or she can do to try and get a student to learn. This falls under characteristic #4 which states "We believe the novice teacher should be a facilitator of learning for all students." The artifact I used for this looks like a simple worksheet that we use often in my Algebra Support Class, but its not the worksheet that is different but how I used it in class. Our Algebra Support class is a small class for students who have had trouble in mathematics and have been "passed along" through their classes. Through observation my mentor teacher and I have noticed that some students are fine with just a lecture and a worksheet but others are objective towards these methods and tend to disrupt class. We've noticed that these particular students will do the work if they are receiving a lot of attention, so we came up with a method that will keep everyone happy. The worksheet is designed for students to be working individually but also I would allow students to come to the board and work on them for the whole class. One student who is objective usually in class and rarely does work had a great time using this method and really started to learn in the class. This came about because my mentor teacher and I did not give up on the student and found a method that helps him to better understand the mathematics and enjoy doing the work. The worksheet was also good because a student did not have to do the boardwork if they did not want to, so they would be learning through their own way. I believe this covers characteristic #4 very well because we showed that all students can learn and it is the responsibility of a teacher to find ways to accommodate all students to learn.

Artifacts and Characteristics of the novice teacher #5

My newest artifact is something that I have recently incorporated in a recent lesson. I have chosen to have my students create a graphic organizer for a certain section in my Geometry class. The lessons that we were going over involved angles of elevation and depression, which primarily consists of word problems. I know from prior knowledge with students and myself that in mathematics nearly everyone hates to do word problems. The graphic organizer I had the students create was used to help them understand the steps to go through while solving a word problem. The organizer was made with one piece of paper that was folded so there would be three rectangles long ways and the students then cut the two end rectangles in half to create four flaps. The first flap was labeled understand. Through conversation with the class we decided what we think should go under this flap. The second flap was labeled plan to see how a student should go about a problem. The third was labeled solve and the final flap was labeled check. For each flap we talked as a class to decide what we should do for each step. This allows for the students to have a guide on how to solve all sorts of word problems. Characteristic #5 states that the novice teacher should have in-depth knowledge of pedagogy and I feel that this artifact connects very well with this characteristic. It really allowed for the students to be creative and be able to understand how others think and approach word problems. Through all the collaboration between my students and I, we developed a great graphic organizer that I believe will help them in my class and others.

Artifacts and Characteristics of the novice teacher #2

The artifact I chose today was my triangle concept cards that I have recently used in my geometry class to help my students derive the Pythagorean Theorem. The students started out with two congruent right triangles and cut one into two smaller triangles. The three triangles were all labeled and through communication with my students we could all find out that the three triangles are all similar and we could find geometric means to solve for the Pythagorean Theorem. Once we had completed the triangles we would label one side of the biggest triangle Pythagorean Theorem and the other side with its definition. This allows for students to use it as a concept card. You might wonder why I think this can fall under Characteristic #2, but I believe it does because I had to communicate with my students the whole time. This lesson required me to have them follow along with me when cutting the triangle in the right place. I also had to communicate well enough so they could see how the three triangles were congruent and remind them of what the definition of a geometric mean is. For this artifact to work effectively in my class I had to speak throughout the entire lesson and guide the students to correctly place the triangles. I also would leave open ended questions because I believe that is a good way to communicate and have my students come up with the answers on their own. I feel this can fall under other characteristics as well but feel that communication was a big part in getting this artifact to work in my classroom.

Artifacts and Characteristics of the novice teacher #7

In class today I brought in my assessment artifact that I came to the conclussion that it falls under #7 on the Characteristics of a Novice Teacher. The #7 characteristic states that we believe that the novice teacher should effectively integrate content and pedagogy. My assessment project did this just this because of the way I went about presenting my students with a quiz. I believe that students should have a review at the start of every class to refresh their memories of what they had been taught in previous days. Before I gave my students the assessment I did a quick overview and a few example problems to help the students better understand the material. The assessment itself was assessing my students in mathematics, which tends to be difficult for students at the middle school level. I think characteristic #7 is very important to a future educator because teachers need to be able to link their content area to their style of teaching. If a teacher cannot do this then it will be diffiicult for a teacher to get students involved in the lesson he or she is teaching. I believe that every characteristic is important to a future educator and that being able to integrate content and pedagogy is very important for someone who wants to be a great teacher.